Scientists have created the first ever large-scale map of microscopic algae as they bloomed across the surface of snow along the Antarctic Peninsula coast. Results indicate that this ‘green snow’ is likely to spread as global temperatures increase. The team, involving researchers from the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey, combined satellite data with on-the-ground observations over two summers in Antarctica to detect and measure the green snow algae. They grow in ‘warmer’ areas, where average temperatures are just above zero degrees Celsius during the austral summer – the Southern Hemisphere’s summer months of November to February. The Peninsula is the part of Antarctica that experienced the most rapid warming in the latter part of the last century.
— source University of Cambridge | May 2020